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Why Nigeria needs a mining corporation now
- By Olugbenga Okunlola
The zeal and focus of the current Minister of Solid Minerals as observed from his utterances, actions and body language give an impression of his determination to make a mark in the industry.

Naturally, the cynical reaction will be “Na Today?”, Using a common Nigerian local refrain. Or, “have we not seen this before?” especially, also considering the actions and initial zeal of previous ministers. Something is striking here however, especially for those of us in the sector for over 40 years, spanning the public service, academia, and industry and seeing through over 11 ministers with diverse agenda and reform programs. A seeming departure is this audacity and boldness to “strike the iron while it is still red hot”. The speed in rolling out his agenda and the clarity of the path he has chosen for this seems a different approach from his predecessors. He is in a justified hurry. This might well be hopefully, an elixir many of us have been envisaging.

Again the usual refrain may be, let us wait and see. As the saying goes, morning shows the day. This particular morning seems to portend an interestingly hopeful day.

One major bold leap in his agenda is the proposal to set up the minerals or mining corporation. This has generated some hearty debates and discussions amongst professionals and non-professionals. A notable one is the editorial in one of the leading newspapers-The Punch. It was more or less a direct, pungent criticism and condemnation of the proposed corporation. The comments were more or less premised on Nigeria’s experience with State Owned Enterprises, which according to the newspaper, has been one of monumental waste, losses, inefficiencies and massive corruption.

While the generalization may be true to an extent, the concept of this corporation, though not entirely new, needs to be subjected to objective analysis. In doing this, It is important to delve a bit into historical perspectives.

Organized mining activities started between 1902 and 1923 with the commissioning of The Mineral Survey of the then southern and northern protectorate. The earliest mined mineral was tin ore by the Royal Niger Company in 1905. Gold and coal followed around 1916. It is significant to note that coal mining gave birth to the railway industry with the earliest rail Infrastructure built to mine coal from Enugu to the seaport in Port Harcourt. Besides the coal corporation, iron ore discovery through government agencies in partnership with the Russians led to the formation of the Nigerian Iron Ore Mining Company NIOMCO, at Itakpe, the beginning of the Ajaokuta Steel complex and steel rolling mills at Katsina, Aladja, Osogbo and Jos respectively.

Prior to 1971, British companies dominated the scene with about 120 companies at the peak of production. Thus a combination of government initiatives, via a combination of state corporations and private entrepreneurship ensured that between 1955 -1975, about four main minerals explored and mined contributed about 12 % to the then GDP with over two million workers employed legally across the value chain of the sector, from exploration to production, processing and smelting. The steel rolling mills, world class tin smelters at Jos, Clay bricks productions across Nigeria were also clear evidences.

It is true that prior to the free fall of fortunes, Jos, Enugu and arguably, Port Harcourt were built practically from mining. From then, to about now, despite series of reforms, laws, policies, roadmaps, foreign and local promotions, the sector has recorded abysmal 0.3% contribution to GDP. The Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, NEITI’s recent audit report corroborates this.

It should be emphasized that there was (and still is) the Nigerian Mining Corporation (NMC) that was “wound up” by the Obasanjo administration through the then Minister of Mines and Steel, Oby Ezekwesili. While many of us applauded the decision then, because of the then obvious issues of managerial lapses, corruption, and a befuddled understanding of the emerging sectorial global trends of the minerals industry, on hindsight, it was a not too correct applause.

Why? The Nigerian Mining Corporation served then as a buffer between the public and the re-emerging private sector that had been severely traumatized by the costly mistake and negative effect of the Indigenisation decree of 1972 on the minerals sector. This decree led to the exit of virtually all the foreign companies including the over 120 British companies. Up till now, despite all the strenuous efforts at promotional trips and wooing them back, none or only very few has returned and are still testing the ground. The “wooing” has been going on now for close to 40 years or thereabout. As at now, there are only about five active mining companies in Nigeria and are mostly small to medium scale companies. This excludes the cement companies that are notably producing limestone for cement in surface quarries.

Read Also: Enugu govt begins shutting of illegal mining sites

The mining industry is peculiarly a highly sensitive industry that is more or less a “marathon” and once trust is missing, it can be tortuous to gain it back. In fairness, there have been strenuous efforts, but it has only led to minimal gains. Despite a 2016 Roadmap that has set a target of 5% contributions to the GDP and efforts to implement it, the GDP contribution is still a shameful 0.3%.

Confidence has to be brought back. Of course, myriad of issues bedevil the sector now, like security, scavenger/ illegal mining, financing constrains, mining rights governance amongst others, which naturally scares away both local and international mining investment. A confidence building investment contraption now needs to be on ground for stability and to convince the serious investing sector. It must be deliberately well run, (and this should be emphasized), with a mind set and clear focus for a PPP entrepreneurship model with adequate checks, balance and free from debilitating bureaucracy. This may need now to be promoted.

Back to the old Mining Corporation of the 70s to the early 2000s, it was involved in breaking down the exploration barriers, and followed it in some appreciable cases to the end point of the value chain. All the serious potential companies for metallic, and even industrial minerals operating or even about to operate today, for metallic and development minerals were virtually all spear headed and developed to brown field status, ranging from the Segilola, Iperindo to the Okolom, Niger fields up to some projects in the Kebbi- Zamfara gold fields by the corporations not to talk of the many brick factories, carbonate ventures and so on. Since they were privatized and sold, over 80% of these efforts have become moribund and completely run down.

A notably sad case is the Coal Corporation assets. Of course, as mentioned earlier, at some point, the Mining Corporation lost focus at the latter years, but while they lasted, they were a buffer between the exploration data generated by the Nigerian Geological Surveys (NGSA) and translating to detailed exploration and production ventures, with working and successful collaborations. Despite the ineptitude that arose later, still to her credit there was no debilitating over hanging liabilities. In fact, it left many assets, now all appropriated, including a world class commercial analytical laboratory that could have been very useful now for the industry. That buffer contraption to facilitate a trust and hence a waiting success story of the Nigeria’s Mining sector may still be needed today.

The compelling issue that we must challenge this administration about is to see that a honest, diligent well planned structure that can be a showcase for successful investment is re-enacted. Experienced, truly trusted, skilful, honest personnel must be involved, “The job for the boys” syndrome must be discarded. The “new” corporation can replicate what NNPCL is, to the oil sector, despite and in the presence of oil giants and IOCs.

In setting up this corporation, a lot of hard work needs to be done and with the zeal of the governance as seen in the last two months one does not think that should be a difficult thing to do.

A parting shot. The concept of “Government has no business in business” in this case may need some modification, especially at this time, and where we find ourselves in the mining industry. No doubt, private investment should still continue to be vigorously promoted, through provision of conducive atmosphere, good and implemented mining governance policies and comprehensive regulatory oversight. However, as a strategy to also encourage and convince the “scared” and unsure international and local investors, this contraption, where safe MOUs, partnerships and long term collaborations and JV on clear and straight business terms are emphasized, may be needed . This confidence building has been lacking in the last 20 years. Let us give this initiative another chance! Anyway, the last time I checked, the act setting up the NMC was never repealed. Its activities were only “wound down”. This might be a good start.
- Prof. Okunlola, Head, Department of Geology, University of Ibadan, is currently president, Geological Society of Africa.
September 21, 2023
Weep not, Chimamanda Adichie
- By Dele Afelumo
Dear Chimamanda,

I just watched the interview you had with CNN’s Christiane Maria Heideh Amanpour where you doubled down on your dastardly attempts at throwing lethal punches at everybody and everything in the wake of your serial losses at the polls and tribunal. To you, only your chauvinist Obidient Brigade and Labour Party faithful were with angelic visages wearing sartorial garbs of innocence, regality, moral rectitude and piety that should be venerated and obsequiously gifted our royal diadem.

This time around, your salvo was laced with incendiary adjectives against the personages of their lord justices in their recent affirmation of the electoral victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. For that judgment with all the imprimaturs bearing all the insignias of unprecedented jurisprudential precedents, all you could spew out in your moment of rage were its shabbiness and shoddiness. Through this latest obloquy, you have once again, demonstrated your aversion to treading the path of honour, virtues and dignity. Your vituperation was pre-emptive of the final adjudication at the Supreme Court to tie the hands of our revered justices by smothering their hard-earned reputation into submitting to your warped dictates. You were only trying to be clever by half. With shameless smugness and contemptuous arrogance, you threw flaks at the painstaking efforts of the revered justices without any iota of legal knowledge to arrive at your inelegant descriptions when you even confessed not to have read the judgment in its entirety with an open, unbiased mind.

The corollary to your infantile and puerile nattering is that any judgment which will declare your Obi-god the winner of that contest is fair and acceptable and vice versa. By letting out putrid excrescences from your poisonous tureen once again, you have stirred the hornet’s nest and vigorously rattled our quiet cages with your shallow, hollow and self-conceited importance after your letters to President Biden failed to achieve their devious objectives.

Concerning the man you wanted to foist on Nigeria, behind the façade of make-believe pietistic mantra and holier-than-thou mien, is an entity well-ensconced in moral vacuity and intellectual swindles with his past slathered in symphonic range of disapprobation. To the Obidients, Peter Obi is a reincarnation of the supreme God himself with never-seen-before Messianism. Every person other than Obi is wearing a spangled ornament coloured with luciferism. This is disgustingly and disquietingly disturbing in a multicultural, multi-religious country such as ours. Exorcising that spirit of Obidism is proving an arcane and herculean expedition to them.

Some renowned academics were also caught in that web of Obidism and infamy with offensively unparalleled political flatulence by concocting lies brazenly and distorting facts and figures with gruesome glee to massage the bestial egos of their scallywags. Akin Osuntokun salved his loins in blighted conscience when he recently said on ARISE television that all the Gallup polls preceding the presidential election in February gave the Labour Party unassailable leads! Really? That statement, lacking all empirical facts and intellectual objectivity, was an egregious assault on the psyche and sensibilities of all discerning Nigerians who voted according to their consciences for candidates of their choices. The unfortunate assumption that the doctored Gallup polls would be sine-qua-non to the very electoral actualities was vitiated by the lacuna in their reasoning faculties and hence, the usual resort to phantom ‘stolen mandate’ drivel by the vociferous hotheads of Obidism.

Read Also: ‘Why Chimamanda Adichie’s Notes on Grief was the best’

Of late, their desperation to pull the country down at all cost in the comity of nations made them solicit the services of a fiery, divisive anti-establishment loony and former UK Member of Parliament, George Galloway, who no sane minds take seriously in the UK, to deride our president baselessly. Because their Obi-god was not in the saddle, the country must be smashed to smithereens at all costs! America’s MAGA and Northern Ireland’s Sein Fein would gleefully want to learn from the irascible, rapacious Obidient vanguards.

The unfathomable length the unpatriotic zealots and archetypal devils can go is better left to our conjectures. They failed to know the mystique of our Nobel laureate’s refusal to pander to their whims and caprices. Perhaps, they needed the ingenuity of a rocket scientist to make them realise that Professor Wole Soyinka and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu fought tooth-and-nail in the trenches to enthrone the democracy the Obidients are kowtowing for the military to torpedo today. They are the latter-day unscrupulous thieving woman in the Bible who stole the living baby to replace her dead one and wanted King Solomon to kill both the dead and the living babies for legal fairness.

Such was the infernal wind of Obidism and its roving spectre of sardonism and Philistinism that many gods of men turned their pulpits into political arenas and were feeding bunkums, lies and vitriols into the throats of their ever-submissive, brainwashed, unctuous acolytes with oily veneer of excessive obsequity slathered over them. Brother Jero’s abhorrent charlatanism in Wole Soyinka’s The Trials of Brother Jero paled into insignificance going by the monumental spiritual frauds and voodooism perpetrated from the hallowed pulpits of our living God manned by prosperity-driven, self-adulating gods of men. With an air of cockiness and finality, many of them pronounced with fiats that Obi would win remarkably and manifestly from their human intelligence but with false attribution of such to our living God who was watching all with guffaw and reserving His wrath for all agents of iniquities who spoke when he did not utter a single word!

Our pulchritudinous Chimamanda, have you ever heard of one Ms Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar? The West made her popular, lionized her as a beacon of democracy, beatified her to high heavens, gifted her Nobel Prize on silver platter for her tenacious efforts at emancipating her people from the tyrannical clutches of the military. They propelled her to stardom just the way they are doing to you now. They financed her every effort to upstage the old order of military adventurism and liberate her people. It seemed an impossible mission until they coached her into playing along, cavorting the macabre dance of the military so that the khaki men could, one day sympathetically relinquish power to her. She went overboard, looked away and vacillated while the no-nonsense goons had a field day visiting horrors on the Rohingya Muslim minorities. Aung San Suu Kyi even defended the daylight near-total ethnic cleansing. Thinking she had done a lot for the military to cede power to her, she contested an election and was coasting to victory until the military gave her the shockers of her life. Her election was not only annulled but she was herded, once again, into her home, never to enjoy her social life in her solitary confinement, tethered to a spot. Today, Aung San Suu Kyi is no longer a prisoner of conscience but a hermit wallowing in obscurity. Her western paymasters left her in the lurch as she had then become surplus to requirements through her idiotic support for the military bent on utterly exterminating a whole minority ethnic group.

The West speaks from both sides of the mouth. It is the same mouth they use to describe the fitting appropriateness of a crown that they will use later to lampoon its unfitting contortion to an angle to suite their whims and caprices. If you destroy your homestead while enjoying the cosy ambience of the western countries, a time will come when they won’t save you from the sharp teeth of wild, wily lions roving to devour you.

You were not even sincere with Obi thus far. If you were, Obi would still not be making his trademark elementary grammatical blunders at every twist and turn. You should have sat him down and with utmost frankness, made him know the appropriateness of the usage of ‘have’, ‘has’, ‘had’ and that words like Economics and Physics, even though they have ‘s’ as their last letters, they remain single words and never to be pluralized as Obi has been regaling us with. Go and watch his CNN’s ONE WORLD interview anchored by our delectable Zain Asher on September 16, 2022. His serial grammatical gaffes were glaringly decipherable by impassioned stylisticians not given to frenetic political demagogueries as were wont his excited unctuous followers. People like you should have purged him of those grammatical infractions, flubs, solecisms, malapropisms and quirks, no matter how long they had stuck to him like bees to honey.

Lastly, sever that umbilical cord of Obidism, purge yourself of the serial inanities you have embarked upon, extricate yourself of all the vestiges of anti-Nigeria diatribes and toe the line of honour to etch your name in gold in the annals of our history as a country. East or West, home remains the best. As I once wrote to you, the words of our revered Eze (Prof) Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike of blessed memories are apt here: only the foolish flies follow the dead into their graves. Your charity should begin at home and not from outside. Enough words are for the wise.
- Afelumo is a physician and wrote in via drdeleafelumo98@gmail.com
September 21, 2023
Task before Sanwo-Olu’s new team
- By Adeshina Oyetayo
Almost four months after Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu resumed office for a second term, a new cabinet was inaugurated just last Wednesday. The impact and importance of teamwork to produce effective governance cannot be overstated. Lagos is Nigeria’s most important state and it beggars understanding and logic why it took so long for the cabinet to be constituted considering the enormity of work ahead and the fact that time is ticking very fast. Thankfully, whatever in-house issues besetting the Lagos political family have been resolved. Now, the team can get to work.

Though the first two years of Sanwo-Olu were pockmarked by two debilitating drawbacks – the corona virus pandemic and the ENDSARS protest of October 2020; he still shone with transformational projects like the Lekki Deep Sea Port (the first of its kind in Nigeria and the most modern in West Africa), the Blue Rail Line (now fully operational); and the Imota Rice Mill among others.

With admirable diligence and effective teamwork, the governor’s T.H.E.M.E.S developmental agenda (Transportation and Traffic Management, Healthcare and Environment, Education and Technology, Making Lagos a 21st Century Megacity, Entertainment, Tourism and Sports, and Security and Governance) has seen Lagos emerge as the premium investment destination in Africa.

Perhaps it is in education that Sanwo-Olu earned his major stripes. Since assuming office, education has always got the lion’s share of the state budget because of the governor’s belief that education is the best legacy to bequeath to children and one of the most potent tools to end poverty and hunger. In four years, education in the state at all levels has improved with new infrastructures like school buildings and functional and fully-equipped libraries and practical and proactive interventions.

Until 2022, Lagos State had just one university. Now, that number has increased to three with the transmutation of two colleges; the Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Ijanikin, into the Lagos State University of Education (LASUED); and the Lagos State Polytechnic into the Lagos State University of Science and Technology (LASUSTECH).

Whatever successes are attributable to the governor hinge on the fact that he had a great team to work with. He has now constituted a new cabinet that is rich in experience, dynamism, and initiative; a mish-mash of the young and the not-too-old; the technocrats and core politicians; and old and new faces.

Expectations are sky-high and there is no time for dithering, dilettante efforts, or tokenism. At this time, particularly, Lagosians want quick and effective answers to the perennial flooding problem. A fast-developing mega city with commensurate population and environmental pollution, Lagos, also known by some observers as Africa’s ‘water city’, has a major pluvial flooding problem and requires an intrepid and insightful administrator to help resolve the causative issues of clogged waterways and drainage systems and developments on floodplains.

Significantly, the governor has tapped Adetokunbo Wahab, the former Special Adviser on Education – to head the Ministry of Environment. Many are hoping and praying that Wahab comes up clutch by bringing to bear his protean intellection, experience, and initiative to enthrone a clean, flood-free, hygienic, and sustainable environment conducive for tourism, economic growth, and wellbeing of the citizens.

Education and Technology are one component under the THEMES agenda. Many are oblivious to the revolution happening in the technology ecosystem in Lagos State, which is now becoming a viable and stable tech locus as it is currently home to three Fintech Unicorns – Paystack, Flutterwave, and Interswitch among many other successful, globally-recognised start-ups. To lend credence to this, the Global Startup Ecosystem Index named Lagos a leading global city in e-commerce and retail technology, transportation technology, and education technology. Conversely, this has earned Lagos the sobriquet; ‘The Fintech Capital of Africa’.

Read Also: Tax Reforms: FIRS will achieve 18% tax-to-GDP ratio in three years, says Zacch Adedeji

That is why the new Commissioner for Innovation, Science, and Technology, Tunbosun Alake, particularly, has to go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that he sustains and surpasses the achievements of his predecessor and foster a more robust and enabling environment for startups and tech companies to flourish, create jobs, drive economic growth, and provide solutions to societal problems in one of Africa’s most important states. Alake is not new to the terrain because he served as a Special Adviser on Innovation and Technology to Governor Sanwo-Olu since 2019.

The attainment of food security is a major policy thrust of the Sanwo-Olu administration, which has necessitated the revamping of the state’s Agricultural Land Holding Authority (ALHA) to support investment in agriculture, the Lagos State Aquatic Centre of Excellence (LACE) that would boost fish production from 20% to 80%; and the Lagos Food Production Centre Avia, Igborosu-Badagry among other agriculture-focused initiatives.

In August 2019, Ms Abiola Olusanya was first appointed as the special adviser on agriculture but became a substantive commissioner in November 2020. Under her, the 32-metric tons per hour Rice Mill in Imota, Ikorodu, with a capacity to produce 2.8 million bags of 50kg bags of rice yearly while generating 1,500 direct jobs and 254,000 indirect jobs, roared to life. Sited on a land space of 22 hectares, the mill is reputed as the biggest in Sub-Saharan Africa and the third largest in the world.

The governor has projected through the five-year Agricultural and Food Systems Roadmap launched in 2021 that Lagos State will generate $10 billion in the agriculture sector in the next five years, adding that most of the investments would be private sector-driven while the government acts as the catalyst and enabler. Since she was there from the beginning, it is auspicious that Olusanya is back as agriculture commissioner and will be required to help sustain good governance through enhanced food productivity and security, promoting sustainable agriculture, and ensuring improved nutrition for the masses in alignment with the T.H.E.M.E.S Agenda.

Recognising that the tourism sector in Lagos is a potential foreign exchange earner, Sanwo-Olu has launched the Tourism Master Plan and Policy that seeks to make Lagos State a top five tourism hub in Africa by directing efforts in the tourism sector in six strategic areas namely; Culture and Heritage; Film, Art and Entertainment; Business and Meetings, Incentives; Conferences and Entertainment; Beach and Leisure; Nature and Adventure; and Medical and Wellness.

Under the last commissioner, there was a lethargy of sorts in the sector and one would expect that the new commissioner, Toke Benson-Awoyinka, will work harmoniously with the recently-appointed Special Adviser for Tourism, Idris Aregbe, to help pursue with verve and vibrancy the 20-year vision of the policy envisioned to make Lagos State one of the top five urban tourism destinations in Africa. As one of the fastest growing sectors of the Nigerian economy, and with Sanwo-Olu’s monumental investments in infrastructure, there would be a deluge of interest in how Aregbe and Toke-Benson can rejuvenate that all-important sector.

The governor has said that his second term would be devoted to achieving the THEMES Plus Agenda and; “The task of this new cabinet is clear. It is to build on the successes of our administration’s first four years in office. It is to take our people closer and closer to our dream of a Greater Lagos…

“The expectations of our people have never been higher than they are right now. Doing your best to meet them is, therefore, not an option. It is the least you will be expected to do. Lagos is the Centre of Excellence; your work must be excellent in every ramification.”

Indeed, the new appointees have their work cut out for them.

•Oyetayo, a Lagos-based media entrepreneur, sent the piece from Lagos.
September 20, 2023
Arik Air: before AMCON winds down
- By Simon Tumba
The matter between Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) and Arik Air Limited is needlessly taking up public space and attracting attention. But the facts of the matter reveal a straight, one could even say, simple solution: a transparent, yes transparent, commitment of Arik Air owners to honour obligations as and when due. Call it a matter of integrity and one would be quite right. It is necessary to consider some background facts to the case.

Arik Air was founded in 2004, by Chief Johnson Arumemi-Ikhide and began operations two years after with a great deal of expectation that it could be the private sector answer to the badly-managed-to-death national airline, the Nigeria Airways. Indeed, the performance of the airline in its early days showed great promise. Research indicates that by August 2006 it began international flights to the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago as well as to Amsterdam; by December 2008 it was flying passengers to London, and the following year to Johannesburg and the JFK in New York. By mid- 2014, Arik Air was flying to Dubai. It recorded its five millionth passenger on August 6, 2010 and its 10 millionth only two years after in September 2012. Both were on the Lagos –Johannesburg route. At the height of its glory, Arik Air was flying 55 percent of domestic flights in Nigeria as well as transcontinental routes to London and New York, according to the April 2017 edition of Financier Worldwide Magazine. For an airline that came into existence in under a decade these were undeniable achievements. But only on the face of it.

Leadership mantra holds that a nation rises, thrives, or fails on its leadership; so too a business enterprise. By 2016, Arik had overextended itself beyond the capability of its management in expenditure, operation, and sundry aspects of running an airline in the peculiar Nigerian environment.

It is received wisdom that it is better –and safer- to learn to crawl before one walks. Put differently, anyone who climbs a tree from the top will have nowhere to go but down. With the benefit of hindsight, and as insiders to the management of Arik Air reveal, the company’s executive chairman, Chief Johnson Arumemi-Ikhide ran the airline in a manner that could not but bring disastrous repercussions that would attract the intervention of the federal government through AMCON. Worse still, gross mismanagement has driven the company into receivership.

Financier Worldwide Magazine reported that, ‘toward the end of 2016, when its troubles began to really take hold, 70 percent of its international flights were delayed. Such was the state of ill feeling around the company’s operations, in January Arik was forced to issue a plea for passengers not to attack its employees when delays and cancellations were announced. The airline currently has around 30 aircraft, but only 10 were in operation at the beginning of February [2017]’.

Burdened by about N280 billion debt to banks and service providers, AMCON took over the airline on February 9, 2017 as a statutory responsibility under its enabling Act. AMCON reportedly said in a statement that “Arik Airline has been in a precarious situation largely attributable to its heavy financial debt burden, and bad corporate governance…that required immediate intervention”. As Nigeria’s official ‘bad debt bank’ the corporation assumed Arik debts to the tune of nearly N280 billion and appointed a management team to stabilize the operations of the airline.

The indebtedness in naira and foreign currencies of Arik kept snowballing to, as at the date it was put in receivership, the hefty total sum of N297, 301, 356, 316.41. In what should be Nigeria’s flagship airline, the details of how this huge sum came about are as embarrassingly many as are varied.

Read Also: Impeached Ogun council boss lied against me – Abiodun

In a 16-point itemization of incontestable managerial failing, AMCON noted in its post-receivership analysis that the airline did not have adequate cash to operate for even one week, only eight of its 30 planes were functional (with a couple of them due for C checks), and it owed foreign business partners and service providers including the sum of Euro 2.4 million to SAMCO Aircraft Maintenance Limited. Aviation fuel suppliers were owed resulting in frequent cancelation of flights and in turn, multi-dimensional inconvenience to passengers. Insurance policy for airplanes lapsed and leases on some planes were outstanding for months. The 2015 – 2019 audited report by PWC which is posted on airline’s website is a testament to the affairs of Arik Air.

Personnel matters were generally treated with levity. Besides that local and expatriate staff, salaries of all categories were owed for months, health insurance for employees expired, training schools owed and refused to grant further credit, rents on accommodation for foreign professional staff were unpaid. Mercator that managed the Passenger Service System and sale of tickets was owed millions of dollars; it stopped rendering service to Arik. Even the internet subscription service by a local network was suspended. In sum, almost no one wanted to do business with Arik Air.

In a detailed statement signed by its general secretary Ocheme Aba, the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) revealed how the once promising airline came to the sorry pass of receivership.

Beginning with a not -well -thought -out business model that included ‘absence of proper due diligence, needs assessment…and operational objectives’ through poor human resource management (‘there was no conditions of service or any HR manual known to the workers…[and] ‘personnel were hired and allocated salaries at the owners’ whims and discretion’) , to ‘financial recklessness and [a] lack of discipline whereby the entirety of revenue accruing to the Airline was seen as personal revenue and acted upon as such’,

NUATE said that ‘the fall [of the company] was a story foretold by its own methods’. Mismanagement of Arik even appears to border on the criminal because ‘personnel taxes and pensions were being statutorily deducted but not remitted, nor saved’.

The group should know because its members were insiders to the running of Arik.

The shareholders of Arik appear eager to have their company back, and to this end made proposals on two occasions in 2018 and 2022. Despite a near 60% discount on the debt, Arik Air owners were unable to pay. Now with a new administration, the owners of Arik Air gleefully want to take back the airline for free after the winding down of AMCON.

AMCON is a public corporation that is responsible solely to serve public interest in the fulfilment of its mandate. Having injected some public funds into Arik with the purpose of stabilizing the airline in the early stage of the receivership, among other functions, it cannot, and will not succumb to the machinations of persons, no matter how highly placed or well connected, to prevent it from doing its job of recovering debts. The facts about Arik Air are in the public domain for anyone who seeks the truth of the matter. The bottom line is that the shareholders should come into negotiation with a transparent mind, a preparedness to redeem their corporate indebtedness so that public monies expended on the airline is returned to public treasury. It is not AMCON’s money but Nigeria’s money for Nigerians. It should not benefit a handful of greedy, arrogant ‘mismanagers.’

It is bruited that AMCON that has sustained Arik Air to date may be wound up. If this is true, and before it is done, the minister of finance, Wale Edun should, in the context of the provision of the extant constitution, ensure that all indebtedness is fully negotiated and paid.

•Tumba is an aviation industry analyst and media relations expert.
September 20, 2023
Reflecting on a new Nigeria of time

The citizens of Nigeria have to begin to look out for a new Nigeria of time. This is very possible. Nigerians outside the shores of the country are well known for their daring exploits in arts, science, and technology. This country is blessed with uncommon, robust human capital. Therefore, there is no justification (despite the fierce neo-colonial machinations to contend with), to remain an underdeveloped country in the 21st century. The great people of this country have the capacity to change the current ugly narrative, largely through the lens of sophisticated philosophisation and determination. No excuses any longer!

Nigerians need to appreciate the fact, that time, the greatest discovery of modern science, is a constituent of everything we do or say. By this token, Nigeria with a wide range of sensitivities, challenges, and possibilities is a world away from a fundamentally changeless or static socio-terrestrial configuration. This is defined and ruled by crises of humongous proportions. Nigerians should learn to say good bye to the culture of unfettered antagonism and immaturity between the leaders and the ordinary people. This does not mean that the led should keep quiet in the face of bad governance basically traceable to monumental political and economic corruption. In other words, our criticisms must be enshrined in fairness and/or keen judgement as opposed to emotion. Progressive opposition is central to a healthy democratic culture. Painfully, Nigeria is still failing in this context, due to an absence of unalloyed patriotism among other factors.

The Nigerian leadership class has to be ready to generate new hypotheses, test them, and even challenge old assumptions or conventional wisdom, whenever the need to do so arises. This is critical to sustainable socio-economic development still elusive in the extreme in the country. Thus, for example, does Nigeria need the current form of democratic system, with the federal lawmakers feeding very heavily on our commonwealth? What is the justification for spending so much money on running the federal legislature with very little practical gains? Why is it difficult to make it, a part-time affair? It was not a full-time legislature during the first republic. Is today’s National Assembly not a near-complete drain pipe of our national resources?

Are the two chambers of the federal legislature not becoming a retirement home for some former governors? Surprisingly, some of them are having serious financial cases hanging on their necks. Mediocrities are having a field day! Politics is the most lucrative business in Nigeria. The gods are angry with Nigeria- a geo-polity, so blessed and yet so disorientated and poor.

PBAT as an apostle of hope and progress needs to look into this all-important subject. There is no way he would not step on certain large, but diseased toes in order to become Nigeria’s Nelson Mandela. The masses would support the president if he could take his courage in both hands. The followers would begin to trust the political leaders if they could desist from their traditional, hedonistic/selfish lifeways. It is most disturbing that our leaders do not empathise with the led, who are agonising and dying daily as a result of unprecedented, dire material poverty and insurgency. The three arms of government-executive, legislature, and judiciary cannot afford to be going in different directions, under the guise of separation of power or democratic freedom. They must learn to work together for the common good. This means that they should stop blocking their ears with cotton wool, because all of us are members of the Homo sapiens family. They are not super humans from another planet.

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It is pertinent to note here, that the petrol subsidy removal was a good, inevitable policy, understandably because of the huge fraud involved during the pre-Tinubu era. Petrol subsidy was promoting an unhealthy, ruthless form of capitalism. But despite the good intentions of the General Officer Commanding (GOC) to engender economic development and sanity in the country, there are a few fundamental challenges he has to quickly address. In this connection, there is need to develop new workable philosophies for cushioning the effects (of the subsidy removal) on the populace. This is a task that must be accomplished at all costs. Crime rate will get higher in the face of huge starvation and hopelessness. The full consequences are too monumental to be recounted here. In solving a set of problems, the government should avoid creating some unintended, ugly scenarios capable of seriously threatening the survival of Nigeria. Time is not a fixity!

PBAT had told us that we should not pity him because of the daunting task of re-engineering Nigeria. However, he needs the good quality support of the led. Nigeria is a collective project! For instance, our education and health sectors have to be thoroughly overhauled for optimal results. Currently, they are in a coma. Paying tuition fees in federal universities is most inescapable. No free lunch anywhere in the global village! State universities have been collecting tuition fees from their students over the years, and yet the heaven has not fallen. Luckily, the federal government has begun to craft appropriate platforms to help the very poor, but brilliant students. However, the pace must be quickened in order to catch up with the modern world of education and economic development. Paying miserable, punitive salaries/allowances to federal public academics is most unacceptable. This is our country, where the political leaders earn disproportionately humongous salaries and allowances. Such a development is a testament to the hypocrisy of the political class.

Salute to the federal university lecturers for their uncommon commitment and passion for excellence, despite their unwarranted impoverishment by the Nigerian state and its ruthless agents! Despite the harsh socio-economic environment, Nigerian graduates pursuing their higher degree programmes abroad, remain a force to reckon with. For instance, recently a few first degree graduates from the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology in the University of Ibadan got teaching and/or cultural heritage management positions in such places as UK and the US. This was due to their outstanding academic performances in these foreign schools. These young Nigerians are some of the unsung heroes or ambassadors of our country. They were taught and mentored by the unbelievably maligned ASUU members. The good quality training goes on, up to now. This is a reflection of unalloyed patriotism.

Given the above scenario, I want to humbly appeal to the “Jagaban of Africa” who now doubles as President of Nigeria, to use his good offices to pay the seized salaries of federal university academics and non-academics alike, during the last industrial action. We are all together, despite the seemingly intractable problems of the various stakeholders. It is time to remember, that the Nigerian problems can only be successfully addressed by the citizens (imbued with nationalistic tendencies), and not foreign partners.

In my opinion, ASUU, SAANU, NASU, and the much maligned NLC as well as federal government should be partners in progress despite their ideological differences. A new Nigeria of our dreams can only be crafted through superb networking/cooperation as opposed to unhealthy rivalries and shameless showmanship for national supremacy.

•Prof Ogundele is of Dept. Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan.

September 20, 2023
Playing ping-pong with cement prices
- By Aliyu Abdulmalik
The chairman of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu, recently said his BUA Cement Company would soon crash the price of cement. Good news. He said this just after his meeting with President Bola Tinubu. Ordinarily, this should stir a fountain of optimism, even joy, among Nigerians. Nay, it hasn’t.

There is overwhelming reason never to bank on such promise of a better tomorrow for builders. Life teaches that there are times to believe the message and discount the messenger. At other times, you are admonished never to believe both the message and the messenger. This is such a time in the case of price crash sermons.

First, this is one promise too often. In almost all instances, such a promise ends up a mirage. Broken promise, broken hope with a trail of despair. Almost every year since 2016, BUA had made a pledge not to increase the price of cement. On all occasions, the company had defaulted by jacking up the price of its cement. Why this irks is that nobody has put undue pressure on the company to commit to hyping its intent to crash the price of cement. This is usually after its management has had a meeting or about to meet with shareholders or when its top executive(s) meets with a senior government official.

This consistency in raising the hope of the people with imminent price slash of a critical product like cement only to dash such hope by doing the opposite smacks of pretentious altruism. You do not continue to make a particular promise and keep reneging on such promise and expect the public to still believe you. This is what BUA is doing, a worrisome act of playing to the gallery just to wear the garb of benevolence.

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Rabiu, by every measure, is a successful entrepreneur; a great employer of labour and astute creator of wealth and value. He and his Group have done a lot to uplift humanity, bolster the economy and sustain living and livelihood in many homes, but they must learn to respect the sensibilities of the public. Raising the hope of the public and bursting such hope in the most cavalier manner and at such dizzying frequency amount to total disrespect of the same people you claim to comfort. Such pattern of corporate behaviour is unacceptable. It is simply an exercise intended to inflict pain on a people in the guise of bringing them succour.

Pray, did BUA not assure Nigerians in 2019 that it would crash the price of cement? That was an assurance it gave to shareholders at the company’s Annual General Meeting, premising its promise on the company’s plans to sign an agreement with a Chinese firm for the construction of three new cement plants of three million metric tons per year in Edo, Sokoto and Adamawa states all of which will be completed by the end of 2022. Did this happen? Never!

Again, did this same BUA, without any prompting, on June 18, 2021, via a press statement, not announce that “as a responsible corporate entity”, it will not be part of a decision to increase price of cement? What happened afterwards? BUA increased the price of its brand of cement barely two weeks after the “responsible corporate entity” show of ‘goodwill.’

Truth be told, BUA is playing to the gallery obviously in the hope to attract public goodwill or to be seen as a people-oriented corporate entity. But it is adopting a wrong strategy towards achieving this. Rather than being perceived as public-spirited and consumer-centric, BUA is publicly perceived as deceptively toying with the emotions of the consumer. Wilfully raising the hopes of the people through marketing sophistry is to do incalculable damage to their psyche.

Just think of those who had made their building plans on the basis of BUA’s promises. Think of what became of such plans. Predicting the net effect is no brainer: a plethora of abandoned building projects, a corrosion of public trust in corporate entities. It’s a long list of woes.

The conglomerate will serve humanity better and more sincerely when they reduce the price of flour, sugar and other consumables from their stable. Nigerians do not eat cement, but they consume sugar, flour, noodles, spaghetti and allied products produced by the BUA Group. Nigerians will be happy, indeed very happy, if the prices of the afore-listed products are slashed especially at these times of biting pangs of fuel subsidy removal when many homes are in dire need of palliatives.

And you just wonder why BUA would be so fixated on playing ping-pong with cement prices while maintaining a deafening silence on the price of flour. It’s not in every home that cement is in demand every day. But every day, in every home in Nigeria, flour is consumed in different ways as bread, sundry confectionery, noodles, spaghetti, and etcetera. Our avuncular Rabiu should focus on reducing the price of flour if truly he loves the people. The pervading hunger in the land makes such demand on him. But will he, and has he?

A few statistics tell the story lucidly. In the last two years alone, BUA has increased the price of 50kg bag of its flour by 135 percent, from N13,200 in January 2021 to N31,000 in June 2023. Now, you know why the good old bread, including the easily affordable and always available Agege Bread, is fast disappearing from the menu in many homes on account of their soar-away prices.

The increase in the price of flour hurts more than any jack up in the price of cement. As I write this in my Kano home, and look out the window, I see hordes of people trekking, not as a form of keep-fit routine, but on account of their inability to afford transport fare to their destination. Worst of it all, Gurasa, a local and once-upon-a-time easily affordable delicacy made from flour, has disappeared from the dining table of many homes in Kano. Because of the incessant increases in the price of flour, Gurasa has been priced out the mouth of the ordinary folk, forcing members of Gurasa Bakers Association to go on strike at a time.

Our good-natured brother, Rabiu, should think less of cement and focus on how he will crash the price of flour, a commodity that is a staple in every home. That is more humanitarian and morally dignifying than his ceaseless toying with the price of cement.
- Abdulmalik writes from Kano.
September 19, 2023
Attitude and development: Tracing a missing gap
Sir: For a while, I have borne on my mind the serious effects of attitudinal deficiencies among Nigerians, but I got sufficiently motivated to comment on it when I saw different videos of the effect of the downpour in Lagos at the weekend. In some places, there were no drains and in many other places drains were obstructed by filth so there was no flow and that resulted in different levels of challenges for commuters and residents in Lagos. What do we deduce from this?

Even with appropriate drainage system everywhere, if we do not become human beings with the right attitude who understand that filth should not just be dropped anywhere and everywhere, it would keep looking like we do not have a working government even when the attitude of the citizens may be causing a greater hindrance to the development of the country than the inaction of the government. How does the government come into community members stealing materials supplied for the construction of roads for their own use? How does the government come into the vandalisation and abuse of public infrastructure by the citizens who use them? Is the government also to blame for the “big man” who winds down from his car to dispose of his soda can or who defies traffic light because no one is watching?

Is government the reason you eat your orange as commuters and throw away the pith from the bus? Is government the reason the bus driver increases fare because there are many commuters?

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In psychology, attitude refers to a set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviours toward a particular object, person, thing, or event. Attitudes are associated to experiences or upbringing and they have a powerful influence over behaviour and affect how people act in various situations.

When an American wakes up, he says “God bless America”. This is a mind-set and an attitude. How do you see Nigeria? It is okay if you do not like, trust or believe in some political leaders but it cannot be okay when this dislike extends to your country and you can utter expressions such as “this country cannot be good again.”, “Nigeria is finished”, and even ask people questions such as “why will you believe in this kind of country?”

So much is connected to attitude that we cannot afford to be silent on its collapse in our society. We must work collectively on attitude repair by doing what is right and urging others to do same. Parents must train their children with the right values. Teachers cannot limit their tasks to teaching just the contents of their subjects. Preachers must tell their congregation that they are members of a whole and must live right in the society. Government too must show the right attitude by making the citizens feel the benefits of being patriotic.

I close this piece with the story of the man who promised to change the world in 10 years. He failed then pleaded for another 10 years to change Africa. He failed again then asked for yet another 10 years to change Nigeria. When he failed this time, he begged for the last chance of another 10 years to change his state. After failing at the state level, then he said to himself, “Instead of wasting 40 years trying to change the larger society, I could have begun by changing myself then my household. My household would have changed our neighbours and our neighbours would have affected our community positively.”

Let the change we all desire begin with us. Repair your attitude!
- Ganiu Bamgbose, Lagos State University, Ojo.
September 19, 2023
Burnt alive
- We do not have a civilized society when a seminarian is roasted to death
The news of the killing of clerics, especially of the Catholic Church, is getting so familiar and common that it risks being jaded. The danger is that it will lose its power to shock, and dull our ability to react as humans to what is one of the great tragedies of this era.

Recently, it was not just a kidnap attempt, though it failed. It was a killing. It was not that it happened, which gores our sensibility. It was its barbarism.

Na’aman Danlami, a 25-year-old seminarian, was trapped in a rectory by people identified as Fulani Islamists and burned alive.

It occurred at the St. Raphael’s Parish Rectory in Fadan Kamantan in Southern Kaduna, at the Kafanchan Diocese.

When the assailants arrived, according to reports, they wanted to abduct the parish priests but they failed. The priests, Father Emmanuel Okolo and Father Monday Noah, resisted the criminals and managed to escape. Meanwhile, the seminarian Danlami was on the premises.

The hoodlums then set the rectory ablaze, according to reports, with the knowledge that someone was inside.

It is indeed unfortunate that we should witness this sort of heartless episode anywhere. Worse that it happened in a place of worship, comparable to a murder in the cathedral.

The Bishop of the Kafanchan Diocese, Julius Yakubu Kundi, said, “The assault lasted more than an hour, but there was no reaction or support from the military forces. A kilometer away there is a checkpoint, but there was a total absence of reaction.”

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If it lasted an hour, and the military personnel did nothing about it, does it not reflect complicity? If it was complicity, it means the incident was more than an act of crime of the invading hoodlums alone.

It calls for investigation, and it has to be transparent. Officers at a checkpoint cannot give any excuse why they looked the other way when hoodlums came during their tour of duty and committed such a crime against humanity. It must therefore yield information on the attackers, and whether they are linked with the military.

If it was due to helplessness, then we must know why. Were they under-equipped or undermanned? The military brass, including the Department of Security Services, need to unfurl the facts.

“Father Okolo and I are out of the house. It is brother Na’aman whose whereabouts we don’t know. Whether he’s there in the flames or they have taken him, or he has escaped we don’t know,” Father Noah said, adding that the parish had fallen under attack at about 8 p.m. This was before it was ascertained that Danlami had fallen.

“This seminarian is the second member we have lost in the diocese at the hands of terrorist attacks by Fulani bandits,” Bishop Kundi said. He was referring to Father John Mark Cheitnum, the director of communications of the diocese, who was reportedly brutally murdered last year.

Also in Kaduna, Ezequiel Nuhu along with his father were ferreted away, raising the number of such abductions in 2023 to 14 of Catholic priests in the sub-region of West Africa. In 2022, four Catholic priests were murdered and 28 kidnapped.

It is no great consolation for fathers Okolo and Monday that they escaped. It carries with them a guilt that they were the ones who did not feel the trap of fire before expiring. But it reflects the foreboding lives of the priesthood today. Bishop Kundi words, “Let’s prove to our enemies that their arsenals of evil have failed again,” is only potent when we prevent it from reoccurring.
September 19, 2023
New deal
- President secures a big win with resetting of ties with the UAE
Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) restored ties in commerce and aviation last week, courtesy of a diplomatic stomp by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The Nigerian leader met with his UAE counterpart, Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi on his way back from the G-20 Summit in India and secured a deal by which the Mid-east country agreed to lift a nearly year-old visa ban on Nigerians and return its carriers to the Nigerian route. Agreement was also reached for investment in diverse sectors of the Nigerian economy. Details of the deal are being worked out, but it’s a done deal we are told.

Presidential spokesman Ajuri Ngelale announced the feat, saying the Nigerian leader secured a reset of bilateral relationship with the UAE in the agreement covering many areas. According to him, Presidents Tinubu and Al-Nahyan reached an understanding that will see the ban placed on Nigerian travelers lifted and UAE carriers, Etihad Airlines and Emirates Airlines, resuming flight schedules to Nigeria. Against the backdrop that Emirates and Etihad shelved operations to Nigeria over inability to repatriate their revenue in foreign exchange, Ngelale said the restoration of flights did not involve any immediate payment by the Nigerian government. The spokesman added that the two leaders as well agreed on a framework that will involve “several billions of US dollars’ worth of new investments into the Nigerian economy across multiple sectors including defence, agriculture and others” by the UAE. He further said President Tinubu “successfully negotiated a joint, new foreign exchange liquidity programme between the two governments.”

The presidential deal elicited euphoria among Nigerians because trade and commerce, not to mention leisure travels, took a hit from the chill in bilateral ties that culminated in UAE’s suspension of visa issuance to Nigerian travellers in October 2022. Many Nigerian business persons regularly visit Dubai to procure items of trade, besides that there is a bourgeoning community of Nigerian residents in that country. But in a notice to trade partners, including travel agents, Emirati authorities said nationals of about 20 African countries, including Nigeria, were banned from entry into its borders and all visa applications were being rejected.

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Factors involved in the downturn of relations between the two countries included trapped funds of the UAE carriers operating to Nigeria, rise in cult-related activities in the UAE linked to some Nigerian residents, and refusal by the UAE to grant Air Peace, a Nigerian carrier, slots to fly into Dubai International Airport. About two weeks before the visa issuance ban, UAE’s Emirates suspended flights to Nigeria over trapped funds amounting to $85million, out of some $800million reportedly outstanding to different foreign airlines owing to shortage of foreign exchange needed to repatriate earnings. Air Peace as well suspended flights to Dubai barely seven months into the operations after a diplomatic row over UAE’s initial denial of the Nigerian carrier flight slots was resolved. Earlier last year, Nigeria wielded the big stick against Emirates when former Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika cut its flights from 21 to one weekly, in retaliation over denial of Air Peace frequencies requested to Dubai. Emirati authorities later rescinded that denial and granted Air Peace seven frequencies, with Emirates’ frequencies to Nigeria also restored.

Ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, last February, urged Al-Nahyan via telephone to lift the visa ban on Nigerians, but he declined. While receiving the new UAE envoy to Nigeria at the State House, Abuja, on August 24th, however, President Tinubu indicated intention to intervene in efforts to resolve the row. “We are a family with the UAE; we live in separate rooms, but in the same house. We should look at the issues as a family problem and resolve it amicably,” he said inter alia.

Some analysts have questioned whether Nigeria’s interests were adequately factored into the new deal, given that the Presidency’s statement was largely silent on this. But officials have since reassured Nigerians the country will not be shortchanged.

The test of this new deal is in the details of its implementation. President Tinubu has at best only done an overarching job, the fruition lies in tying the nuts and bolts into place by relevant officials. For instance, the issue of trapped funds must be satisfactorily redressed, while reciprocity of Dubai frequencies for Nigerian carriers must be firmly secured. The proposed investments in various sectors of the economy will need an investor-friendly environment to be realised. And Nigerian residents in the UAE must be on their best behaviour to ensure the country’s image is no longer sullied. The two president only provided a broad framework into which technocrats and other relevant stakeholders must fit in the bits.
September 19, 2023
Of quacks and victims

If you ever have to undergo surgery at a Nigerian hospital, you may need to play safe by undertaking inventory scan of your body organs before and after the surgery, just so to be sure the organs remain intact. That is the lesson to learn from the experience of the Kamal couple in Jos, Plateau State. The couple has been in the news over alleged harvesting of one of the kidneys of the wife, Kehinde Kamal, by a neighbourhood practitioner who the victim’s husband, Busari Kamal, recently dealt out to the police. The ‘doctor’ is Noah Kekere and the ‘hospital’ is Murna Clinic and Maternity located in Yanshanu community, Jos North council area.

The police in Plateau State took Kekere into custody after Busari Kamal, a businessman, reported him to the Nasarawa Gwom police division, accusing him of having removed his wife’s right kidney during a surgery in 2018. The surgery Kekere conducted on Mrs. Kamal had nothing to do with her kidneys, but he allegedly invaded that region of her body anyway and harvested one of the vital organs. Kekere reportedly had been practising in the community for more than 25 years and was a favourite of residents who thronged his outfit because he presumably exemplified the Hippocratic Oath: he charged less compared to other centres and even performed some surgeries on credit, if only to safeguard the primacy of life.

What took the Kamals to Kekere in 2018 was a complaint of severe stomach pain by the wife, upon which she was rushed to the clinic and whereby Kekere diagnosed ruptured appendicitis and advised urgent surgery. Busari Kamal recounted to journalists that he got to know Kekere and his clinic through a medical treatment his mother earlier underwent there: “About eight years ago, my mum was sick, so she was directed to a hospital owned by one Dr. Noah Kekere at Yanshanu, Nasarawa Gwom community of Jos North local government area, and in the process of going to see my mum at the hospital, I got acquainted with the doctor. When my wife fell ill in 2018, complaining of severe stomach pain, my mum encouraged us to take her there because my wife used to follow my mum to see the doctor when she was sick.” The narrative of how the surgery eventually came about was given by Kamal as follows: “We got to the clinic and the doctor did a scan and said my wife had ruptured appendicitis and must be operated on immediately, and he charged us N140,000. When I called some people to ask about the high bill, as I planned to take her to JUTH (Jos University Teaching Hospital), they advised we just go ahead and save her life. The doctor asked how much I had and I said N80,000, apart from other charges for drugs… The day the doctor conducted the operation, he started from 12 noon till 8p.m.”

That surgery, however, didn’t end maters for the Kamals. “For the past five years, my wife kept complaining of severe stomach pain. I continued to take her to the same hospital because I did not want to change the doctor that started her treatment. But as she continued to have the pains, I decided to go to the Jos University Teaching Hospital, where we discovered that one of my wife’s kidneys had been removed,” the husband said.

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The organ harvest victim has herself been speaking of her bitter experience. She recalled that she stayed six days at Kekere’s hospital following the purported appendicitis surgery, only to thereafter experience fresh complications: “After six months, the side of the operation started causing me pain. My husband said I should go back to Dr. Kekere to lay my complaint, which I did. He prescribed some medicines for me. After taking the medicine the pain was eased for some time; but not long after, the pain started again.” Kehinde Kamal said she continued reporting to Kekere about the pain at regular intervals. “Whenever I complained, he would either give me some tablets or injections, but a few days after, the pain would return. When I kept complaining, he told me I needed another surgery as another disease was discovered in my stomach and would cost me N60,000. But I thought: what if the second operation was carried out and it was also not successful? I was scared because the first operation was yet to be healed and the doctor was suggesting another one. I then decided to go to JUTH for further consultation.”

According to Mrs. Kamal, when the outcome of the evaluation at JUTH revealed that one of her kidneys was removed, she at first didn’t even understand what it was all about. “When my abdomen kept paining me, I approached JUTH for further examination of my health status so as to understand what the cause really was. On getting to JUTH, a doctor, after hearing my complaint, thoroughly examined my stomach and asked me to go for scanning. After the scanning and the results were out, the doctor asked me which kind of operation I underwent that my stomach was cut to that magnitude. I told him it was the appendix. The doctor further asked where the first operation was carried out and I told him it was at Murna Clinic. He then disclosed to me that one of my kidneys was removed. Kidney? I asked. I didn’t know what kidney meant, but I quickly called my husband to inform him that the result of the evaluation at JUTH indicated that my kidney was removed.” She added that when the couple confronted Kekere with the discovery, he denied having anything to do with it. After the police were brought in, they ordered that another scan be done at a hospital in Jos South council area, where the result showed same verdict. And it wasn’t that she had any record of surgery before the encounter with Kekere. “I was never in my lifetime admitted in a hospital or underwent surgery until 2018 when I was first operated on by Dr. Kekere. I gave birth to all my four children in JUTH and never had any record of surgery,” she said.

It is a wonder how Mrs. Kamal has lived on one kidney without even being conscious, so as to take necessary precautions in such circumstance. But Kekere’s credentials do not speak for him and he never should have performed the surgery on her. The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), which launched an investigation of the suspect’s credentials after he was arrested by the police, said it has found he isn’t a doctor. “Our records do not show that the person accused is a medical doctor. From what we have at our secretariat and the investigation we have carried out, he is actually not a doctor and therefore not our member” the chair of the Plateau State chapter of the association, Dr. Bapigaan William Audu, told journalists.

So, if Kekere is a quack, how has he managed to practice unapprehended for more than a quarter of a century? That sheer fact is an indictment of monitoring and standards oversight in the medical profession in Nigeria, and more so the nation’s security establishment. In Kekere’s 25 years-plus of practice, the Kamal woman wouldn’t be his only victim of ambush organ harvesting, if truly the man is into that business. The Kamals must only be the vocal victims. There is need to interrogate the history of medicare by Murna Clinic and ascertain whether there haven’t been strange deaths of ex-patients, or whether all living ex-patients recovered fully from their challenges and are presently in good health. If there have been strange deaths or ill-health complications suffered by ex-patients, it shows the porosity of societal safeguards that these had gone on for many years without catching the attention of security agencies and regulatory authorities of the medical profession. It is bad enough that the standard of medicare in Nigeria is low, it is worse that the system can be predatory without safeguards for hapless citizens.

A more knotty issue is the legal framework available to the Kamals to pursue remedy. The accused practitioner has been arrested by the police, but what is to be done with him even if proven guilty? Kehinde Kamal can’t have her right kidney back anyway and will have to live on the remaining one. But it is doubtful there are specific legal provisions stipulating the price Kekere should pay if found guilty – both as remedy for the victim and in self-recompense before the law. It is double jeopardy for the victim when there is no law to redress the offence.

•Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.

September 18, 2023